April 30 (UPI) — A full federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s request to rehear his appeal of an $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused the president of lying when he denied sexually abusing her.
Trump has been fighting the multimillion-dollar penalty since a jury in 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll compensatory and punitive damages. The president is expected to ask the conservative-leaning Supreme Court to hear his case next.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied rehearing a 5-3 split decision among active participating judges. The order rejected Trump’s request for full-court review of his arguments that the case should be dismissed because he made the comments while president, and that the United States should replace him as the defendant in the case.
The ruling marked the third and fourth times the full 2nd Circuit court had voted to deny en banc rehearing of rulings in this specific defamation case and fifth and sixth denial opinions it has issued involving both cases Carroll brought against Trump.
In the order, Judge Denny Chin said the court was right to reject Trump’s claims, stating the president’s defenses came too late to substitute the United States for him as the defendant and in asserting presidential immunity.
“If any other litigant had failed to raise an affirmative defense in this way, there would be no question as to whether he waived his right to assert it,” he said.
The ruling comes in one of two cases Carroll filed against the president after he publicly denied her accusation that he had sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in 1996.
After the allegations were published in her 2019 memoir, Trump repeatedly denied even knowing Carroll and accused her of making up the sexual abuse claim to sell books.
She filed the defamation case in November 2019 followed by a second lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act in 2022.
The second case was tried first, with a jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and awarding Carroll $5 million in damages.
Then the first case was tried, with Trump being ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million.
Both judgments have been upheld by the 2nd Circuit, with Trump asking the Supreme Court to consider his appeal to the $5 million ruling in November 2025.
“The record showed that Trump made multiple statements over many years accusing Carroll of lying for political and financial gain, and suggesting that Carroll was too unattractive for Trump to have sexually assaulted her,” Chin, appointed by President Barack Obama, said in the ruling.
“As a result of Trump’s statements, Carroll was harassed and humiliated, subjected to death threats and feared for her physical safety for years. And Trump showed no remorse, continuing his attacks against Carroll during and after two federal trials and even proclaiming two days into the Carroll I trial that he would continue to defame her ‘a thousand times.'”
In dissent, Circuit Judges Steven Menashi, Michael Park and Debra Ann Livingston said they would have granted both of Trump’s petitions.
Writing on behalf of the dissenting judges, Menashi said the majority was wrong in not permitting the United States to stand as the defendant, arguing that many of the allegedly defaming comments were issued in press releases and made to the press at the White House.
“Making public statements to the press is part of the president’s job,” the Trump appointee said.
“When the president engages in ‘public communications,’ he discharges ‘official responsibilities’ and therefore acts within the scope of the office.”
Menashi also wrote that the majority erred concerning Trump’s presidential immunity claim, stating the comments fell within the “outer perimeter” of the president’s official responsibilities, citing Supreme Court precedent.
“The immunity prevents not only liability for official acts but also the use of evidence of official acts even when the jury is ultimately asked to evaluate ‘charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct,'” Menashi wrote.